Honoring the legacy of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during Black History Month, civil rights activist and teacher Minnijean Brown Trickey will talk about her life-long social justice career that began in 1957 when she joined eight other students to desegregate Little Rock (Arkansas) Central High School as federally mandated, despite strong local opposition and threats of violence. Brown Trickey’s virtual appearance is presented by Student Activities and the Student Senate, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Cultural Affairs Program.
Minnijean Brown Trickey has a lifelong commitment to peacemaking, environmental issues, developing youth leadership, diversity education and training, cross-cultural communication, gender and social justice advocacy. Her teaching experience in social work includes Carleton University, and community colleges in Canada. She served in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Workforce Diversity at the Department of Interior and was the Shipley Visiting Writer for Heritage Studies at Arkansas State University. For the past 20 years she has been a nonviolence and antiracism facilitator for Sojourn to the Past, a 10-day interactive history experience for high school students. She remains active as a teacher, writer and motivational speaker. The mother of three sons and three daughters, Brown Trickey holds a Bachelor of Social Work in Native Human Services from Laurentian University and Master of Social Work from Carleton University in Ontario Canada. She is the recipient of four Honorary Doctorates, as well as numerous awards recognizing her community work for social justice These include a Lifetime Achievement Tribute by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the International Wolf Award for contributions to racial harmony, the NAACP Spingarn Medal as one of the Little Rock Nine, and the Congressional Gold Medal. She is a member of the Little Rock Nine Foundation that awards nine scholarships bi-annually.